Friday, January 8, 2010

With this cold weather & a little bout with a cold, Thai curry soup has been my current obsession. To me it's sort of like chicken noodle soup on steroids. I've ordered it out a few times lately but decided it was time to make some at home.There are a lot of recipes for this soup online but I was inspired most by this one on Pink Bites, though I added some garlic & bumped up the amount of red curry paste. It's pretty darn close to the soup I've been having out though it needs to be just a touch spicier, not sure exactly what to add for that yet.

One of my goals when making this soup was to be able to make the broth & refrigerate it, then just cook up a single serving as needed for lunch or dinner. It worked perfectly & by cooking just a bowl's worth as needed the vegetables remained crisp. I used broccoli florets, red onion, mushroom, carrot but you could use any mix of fresh vegetables you wanted.

A note about the noodles. I used rice sticks because those were what I had on hand. What I really wanted for this soup was a thicker rice noodle, one that was almost the size of fettuccine but I couldn't find it at the store. The rice sticks worked well though & cook up quickly in 3 minutes which worked wonderfully for making up single servings of soup.

In a medium soup pot heat the oil over medium high heat. Add the ginger & garlic then cook for about 2 -3 minutes, do not let the garlic brown. Add the curry paste & stir while cooking for about 30 seconds. Add the chicken stock, coconut milk and chicken. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover & let simmer for 15 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Stir in fish sauce, lime juice & brown sugar. (If you are not going to serve at this time refrigerate this broth to use later. Just follow the remaining directions when you are ready to eat. You can cook up the whole batch or just one bowl at a time.)

Bring back up to a simmer. Add the onion, carrot, mushrooms & broccoli. Let cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the rice sticks. Cook for 2 more minutes. Add the spinach & cook for 1 more minute.

Hi - I just came across your blog and it's great. I am a big fan of Thai soups and recommend that to add more spice use a sliced red chilli as well as your red curry paste. It adds the heat you need and if you prefer it hotter just add more. It might take a few attempts to get it just right. I leave out the coconut milk to make it a little less calorific. One other hint is don't use bok choi or any other leafy green in it if you are not goinge to eat it straight away as the soup takes on the flavour of the green veg only and it over powers. Hope this helps :) F

Oh, gosh -- I remember the first time I added a dollop of red curry paste to a bowl of chicken noodle soup hoping to clear out my sinuses... it was wonderful. And this looks like an even better (more well thought out) version.